Heretofore, orthodontic appliances have been provided for patients for purposes of facilitating the positioning or alignment of opposing dental arches which have generally required laboratory procedures for making the appliance between visits by a patient. Some appliances have been rather complex in structure and relatively expensive to make.
It has been known to make appliances for wearing by persons that are in the form of mouthguards or teeth protectors which are constructed from blanks of thermoplastic material that may be softened by heating so as to allow impressions of teeth to be formed in the blanks, and where the mouthguard is worn for purposes of protecting the teeth particularly where the wearer is involved in athletics. Such mouthguards, however, are not intended to serve as jaw-positioning devices, and are not intended to be worn in conjunction with fixed orthodontic appliances for the purpose of orthodontically treating a person and for obtaining a correction of the relation between dental arches.